Harry's Devotion
by Mistress Slytherin
Summary: Harry sees something that no one else sees. A tale of a twisted romance gone wrong.


**It is now 7:37 in the morning and I have not slept- this story in all it's poetic depressing goodieness is the result of my now chronic insomnia. Someone please shoot me with a tranquilizer? Please? Eight bloody hours of sleep is all I'm asking...gah! Oh well, please enjoy!**

**Mistress Slytherin**

**MALE/MALE relationship**

**Not my charachters**

**NOT FOR THE EYES OF CHILDREN  
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The first time I truly saw you, you were standing in the rain looking up at the sky as if it held all the answers, as if it could wash away your shame. I realized then, while my childish and misplaced wrath melted away, that no one must truly see you. The man I had thought I had known was a sham, a ruse. It was what anyone saw without truly looking and I realized that I was a hypocrite. All these years I had hated you for seeing only my father and yet when I looked at you I refused to see anything other than what I wanted to believe. That day, as I stood shadowed by a pillar watching you in your silent grief, everything changed.

Severus Snape.

Potions Master.

Death Eater.

Git.

Who are you?

Without my acknowledging it, you became my obsession. I had always felt your eyes on me, watching over me, and the thought that had once made me bitter only caused my curiosity to grow. I had no right to be so curious about you- I know that now, but that didn't stop me. I was- and am still, young, brash and headstrong. I stuck my nose where it didn't belong just like you said I did. I watched for those rare glimpses, the ones that no one seemed to notice, a flash of hurt, a twitch of betrayal, walls formed by sharp words to protect your already tattered view of yourself. You returned covered in blood many nights only to face the suspicious angry bigots that you were fighting to protect.

Then, you turned around,

And did it again.

Fury built inside of me as I noticed this, but I knew that you would hate me if I did anything about it. If Sirius' death didn't become a reason for me to focus on training- my frustrated anger towards your continued betterment did. Normally when I thought about you I could not focus, but in training you were a driving force. It didn't matter how much I bled or hurt, you had hurt worse and bled more, it didn't matter how much I wanted to run away, you stood your ground. You faced your darkest nightmares with a determination I could only strive to meet.

You were twisted.

Cracked but not broken.

Beautiful.

I could no longer look at you.

After two years of obsessively watching you, I couldn't bring myself to look at you. Of course I did not know what it was, but I knew it was dangerous and out of all the things I had faced you were the most frightening. I could feel when you noticed the loss. Your eyes burned into the back of my scull and made it impossible to breath, but I did, and I continued avoiding your gaze. I refused to let you bait me, your insults hit home with every rabid attack yet I had no rebuttal. Even though it was you that dragged me away from the cold lifeless bodies that had once been my closest friends, I could not meet your gaze.

You spoke,

I hung on your every word.

But I pretended that I didn't hear you.

I heard you.

I saw you.

And you are beautiful.

Somewhere along the line I gave up on keeping track of time or allowing my mind to wander into the past. We could not afford the distraction, not with Dumbledore dead and Voldemort on the move. I began to write in a small journal, each time you came back with blood on your hands and tears hidden in your eyes, I wrote the date and time down. For every date in the journal, I killed another death eater. You didn't notice, and I didn't tell you.

The world was falling to shambles.

The number of dates carefully written increased.

I increased it to two death eaters for every date.

And I still refused to look you in the eye.

Days drew into weeks, weeks into months and the blood began to encrust my fingernails. When you didn't look, I watched you. When you were wounded, I tended to you. When you stopped eating, so did I. Nutrition potions hastily guzzled down replaced meals for the both of us.

Then it happened.

You returned to us, and your eyes stayed empty.

As the established leader of the Order, I refused to let you return to Voldemort's side. Your eyes were blank as your face twisted into fury, for the first time in Merlin knows how long; I met your gaze head on. For the first time, you dodged mine. It was settled. But my fury had burned into an inconsolable rage.

When they dragged Remus' body in,

I lost it.

I killed over two hundred death eaters that night.

Cold blood, with only my wand, a blade and my rage.

They didn't have a chance.

When I returned, drenched in blood my own eyes empty, you looked at me, picked up a note book, and wrote down a date and a time. You had known all along. I met your gaze, and held it. Neither of us looked away for a long time.

Beautiful.

Something sparked in your eyes, it was small, but it kept me from falling into the sea of blood that was threatening to overwhelm me. Despite my own self hatred, I felt at peace as I dragged my exhausted body to my shower. I didn't make it far, I'd only managed to turn on the taps and stand under the flow fully clothed, when I fainted dead away. When I woke, I was clean and the scent of your magic hung in the air. Small bottles with your neat, tidy, script were lined up beside my bed. When you entered carrying a try with two plates I looked away. No words were necessary; you placed the tray across my lap, picked up a fork and with slow deliberation began to eat. You did not hide yourself behind a scowl, or bark at me for the stupidity of my actions, instead you ate, stripped bare of what you showed to the world, sharing with me of all people, something precious.

After this we ate together.

We met each other in the middle of the night when ghosts refused to settle.

First we were silent through it all.

Then we spoke of meetings, maps, and plans.

We had tea and plotted

We spoke quietly

Of the hauntings which woke us.

Of the future paved in blood.

Of the past drowned in blood.

The end of that road was not glorious, not to those of us who understood just how much it had cost. It was as Minerva had once put it 'sheer dumb luck' that I managed to kill Voldemort. I wasn't even aiming for him really; I was lost in the battle my daggers cutting people down before they had the chance to open their mouths. Their wands were useless, I was speed and power, they were nameless, faceless and unprepared. I realized that I had struck Voldemort when my blade was already on the other side of his neck. Red eyes had stared at me for a long moment and my rage swept through me at an unstoppable rate. People stopped to stare as I cut through him, again and again, again and again until he was nothing but bits and pieces of the monster he'd once been. Then, for the first time since early that morning I pulled my wand out and lit him on fire. He was not coming back this time. His horcruxes were destroyed and so was he.

It was over.

When I returned to you,

When I told you that it was over,

You kissed me.

Gods you were beautiful.

The kiss was short and chaste, but it meant far more than either of us were willing to let on. We let it slide even though it was obvious that something had changed. Casual touches meant more and became frequent as we buried the dead and struggled to build the world anew. We still ate together and when I wasn't around you began to wear your walls again as you slowly rebuilt them. I allowed it because you needed them, but I refused to look at you when they were up, you sensed this and lowered them only for me. It was a precious gift and I cherished it. Anyone I caught insulting you met the tip of my wand and left with an understanding that they'd better keep their tongues in check. One day you caught me, and for the first time in a long time, you smirked.

It was short,

And you flushed upon realizing that I had seen,

But for the first time in a long time,

I returned it.

Shortly after the incident you returned to your post as Potions master of Hogwarts and I became the Defense professor. You didn't bat an eyelash when they put us in the same quarters. And when I tried to sleep on the couch you hexed me until I joined you in bed wrapping your arms around me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Oddly enough, it _was_ the most natural thing in the world. The next day, as we finished breakfast in our quarters you brushed your lips against mine and I returned the pressure. The gasp you let out was something I held onto for the rest of the day. It enchanted me. _You_ enchanted me. And when you pulled me into your arms that night and devoured me with clever lips and a skilled tongue, how could I have said no?

A gasp became a moan,

My moan,

And you swallowed it eagerly.

Your fingers traced every contour of my body with the same patience and painstaking reverence that you displayed in making potions. Each slide of skin against skin was calculated as you sought out hollows and curves that made me gasp and moan mapping me out. I was unprepared for the finger that entered me slick and cajoling, but when you met my gaze and your slow stroking moved from one finger to two I could do nothing but push against them. Your gaze was so intense. So deep and dark, simply mesmerizing. You took your time with me, I have never felt a greater pleasure then I did then as you slowly made love to me with your hands and lips. When you entered me I was hardly coherent, the desperation I felt had my crying out at the feeling of being so full. When you moved, when you showed me true pleasure with just a brush of something inside of me, I lost myself to your rhythm.

I forgot about the blood and tears.

I forgot about the book with dates and times written on every line.

And for a moment, you forgot too.

Together, slowly, we reached the end and met each other in a Nirvana that I hadn't known existed. The awe inspiring moment is one which I will hold dear to me no matter how much time goes by. Severus I did not tell you then, though I should have. But I loved you with a hopeless passion that no one could ever compare to. Yet when I woke, tears I never knew I shed drying on my cheeks- it was eternally too late. You were gone. Gone from our bed. Gone from our quarters, and gone from my arms which so desperately sought to hold you. The ministry looked at me oddly when I decided to file a missing persons report. You wouldn't believe it but they told me you had been dead for several years already! What a sham! I told them to give me the date of your death and they did.

Oh my love they did…

I was sure it was ridiculous, a mistake most certainly and returned to our rooms to fetch the old notebook. Oh the oddest thing Severus. The dates were as I expected them to be until I reached the third page- until I reached the date that they had given me for your death.

They repeated.

Again.

And again.

And again.

The same date over and over again in my own messy scrawl.

Memories are tricky, devilish things.

You see I have come to notice now that I have two sets of them, one being the ones I've only just described to you, and another which I cannot live with.

That night when you returned to us, your eyes were blank, but not with that hollow grief you showed before. Your eyes were blank with death. And your hands, your beautiful bloodstained hands were covered in blood like usual. But it was your blood.

They tell me that you are a ghost Severus.

But ghosts do not kiss the living do they?

They do not touch them and hold them,

Nor do they look at you with eyes of intense black fire.

Oh Severus…

Oh Severus…

So beautiful Severus, even now as the poison I've drunk creeps through my veins and makes breathing an arduous task. Oh Severus…Do not hate me still? We might not have reconciled in life, but in death- in death there is hope…

#####

Harry Potter, age forty-five let the quill fall from his numb fingertips and smiled faintly as his lips turned purple. In death, there is hope. His eyes slid shut then, knowing those to be his last words, patiently Severus waited for him as his body slowly gave way to death.

"Severus." Harry whispered. The man smirked.

"Beautiful am I?" He said quirking an eyebrow. Harry's breath caught in his throat and tears gathered in his eyes.

"Yes." He croaked. "Beautiful." He whispered.

-_fin-_


End file.
